Car running rich as hell, white smoke everywhere, rough idle, won't start now

[Guest]

Theyre bloody good to deal with down there. Waited 30min on hold once but still wont say a bad word about them. I dont mind waiting when theyre helpful unlike sky etc.

[kamineko]

 shore_boy said:

No luck there. Phone call will hopefully do it given they don\'t ask me to many technical questions.

All the codes on the chips have faded. Not to mention the one that needs replacing is burnt and cracked...

well, still don\'t throw it out. some people like a challenge

[shore_boy]

Thanks EVOWRX for the advice I gave them a call today and their technical support was bloody brilliant. Nice to know there\'s a company that\'s not looking to pay minimum wage for phone support (either that or wohever answered loves his job!). As you say even if it\'s a 30min wait its better than waiting at all for a useless sky employee.

So it is indeed repairable and they quoted a generous $100-$150 (over the phone) + Gst and shipping i\'d imagine. Step forwards finally! Dropped my new ECU with the mechanic and he said that either today or Monday he\'ll get onto it. So i\'m hoping she fires and runs well with the factory board in place. With no O2 and the possibility of the AFM being wired out it will be interesting! Either way I can pop the link back in if its not fantastic. Just have to pray that the chip that\'s cracked hasn\'t got anything too important on it because i doubt they can pull whatever has been programmed in and transfer it.

As for the board it\'s a "Possumlink WRX series 5" so perhaps it\'s time to give Possumbourne Motorsport and ask them if they know anything about the car. Ill post some pictures soon.

Potential culprit is a loose battery terminal. There was a plastic spacer on the bracket that fits on to the terminal and it wasn\'t secured to the terminal with the spacer in. However, I don\'t believe it was loose enough to do anything beside marginally wiggle side-to-side. Nothing that i would think could be fatal.

[Guest]

Dont piss around with the stock ecu just get the link fixed and plugged back in. The money you save not putting the stock ecu in go and get the base tune altered by a proper tuner. Disregard the PBMS touch it just means its "plug and play" pretty much.

[shore_boy]

It would be nice to run both because my fuel economy is terrible with the link in. Also I could use the link for the track and the stock for road use? The link is running 18psi and quite rich. Is that what you meant by get the tune adjusted?

[Guest]

Nope just go get the link tuned and run that. Chances are its still running the base map they come with to start the car initially if so will be running rich as stink.

Generally cars end up with better economy when tuned as most run slightly rich from factory.

[shore_boy]

Any idea what it will cost me?

[Guest]

Roughly 1k max for prof job. Talk to sp00n on here he has a serial link and could do it helluva lot cheaper Id be picking.

[shore_boy]

Thanks, have seen his post on my thread will pm him and ask for his opinion.

[boon]

If you have no O2 sensor then yeah it will suck the gas as the engine has no ability to correct the mixture in real-time.

It\'s probably an injector drive MOSFET that failed, seen that before on some earlier Links, and it will just hold an injector wide open.

[Guest]

Not if its tuned to run without it. Some tuners dont like running O2. Im not familiar at all with the G1 stuff and its capabilities tho.

Sounds untuned tho. Or was badly tuned/boost wound later date etc and frying inside has caused an issue.

[Johnnynz]

I reckon my car is cheaper on gas at cruise with the Link installed. Foot right up it is another matter however.

[Guest]

 Johnnynz said:

I reckon my car is cheaper on gas at cruise with the Link installed. Foot right up it is another matter however.

Fair chunk more power than stock tho so WOT hardly comparable...

[Johnnynz]

Yup exactly, 16 psi and pinking @160kw vs. 19-20 PSI 200kw safe as houses.

My tune paid for itself the moment I found out the ECU I had in was pinking, the extra power etc. was cake after that.

[Guest]

Why was it pinking?

[Johnnynz]

Not to sure, I think the ECU was a mismatch for everything else and it was running a bit lean near the top of the rev range. I buggered around with fitting an STI ecu a while beforehand and maybe I did something wrong.

[shore_boy]

Got a call from the mechanic this morning and car is up and running! No mechanical issues at all. Thank god. Although im not looking forward to paying for labour...

Also sent some pictures to link (which showed as broken links when i posted them yesterday) and they gave me the names of the parts that i need to fix the circuit. My neighbour says he can do this for around $10. Also as it turns out the chip that was cracked controls the ignition, fuel pump and injection i believe.

All makes perfect sense now and i\'m going to pick up tomorrow. Will probably ask to borrow the mechanics air flow meter (for the drive home) as i returned mine. Looking to get the link ecu plugged in and running as soon as possible.

[kamineko]

would like to see the pictures if possible?

[shore_boy]

Some pictures finally.

Inside...

As for the car here\'s the auction i bought from

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=611091905

[shore_boy]

The car is now looking a lot cleaner than before and has a few goodies not mentioned on the auction..

280kmph/10k rpm speedo all genuine on carjam. The car must have been imported with this already on as wagons dont have DCCD as far as im aware.

The D2 adjusties are track spec camber, damper and height.

5Zigen 17" rims with near new Eagle f1\'s (about 6mm) all directional.

Possumlink ecu as we now know.

Kevlar underbody and cusco underbody brace.

This is what I know of so far... I need to speak to possumbourne as the underbody and ECU are supplied by them I believe.

Will post some updated pics of the car when she\'s back home!

[Guest]

Good buy at bloody good price.

[shore_boy]

I thought it was undersold too. She looks cleaner in person

Gotta love dollar reserves!

[kamineko]

thanks for the pics

[Marky]

I\'m happy to see me proved completely wrong haha

[shore_boy]

Thanks for all the help. Appreciate any comment with possible solutions. Was crazy to see the similarities between the mechanics work and the suggestions posted. Just didn\'t want to go chasing something electrical so in the end off she went to the mechanic. Highly recommend Petermark\'s garage. Really, really great service and some very knowledgeable guys. Will post more pictures in the garage section soon.

Final words determined that the fault was firstly the AFM followed by the ECU. Shit happens.